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@Stephan
Your marriage is your life capital. Spend it well by investing in its future.
Thank you for the honest sharing. I understand and support your decision for family.

Ken

Stephan

I find it a little bit difficult to post this on a public forum because it is very personal but I guess that's the whole point of having this journal. I don't think it will be helpful to go through my trades today because I really shouldn't have traded in the first place. I read the "Time to Give Up" thread under psychology and money management section and thought about my own trading for a while. I realized that there is a pattern to most of the days where I make stupid mistakes and practically just give money away.

Big Mike mentioned some of the characteristics of people who lose money trading. For the most part, I don't think I have those issues that he mentioned. But one thing stood out for me is not being in a situation where I can focus on trading. I do have a plan (although I may need to update and firm up some of the details). I do my best to measure my results not based on my P&L but with the S5 Trade Analyzer and I also keep a spreadsheet on the errors I make on a regular basis. I do stick to a consistent method for the most part. I don't have unrealistic expectations. I am not undercapitalized and I am definitely willing to do the work. My problem is that I am not in a position in my life right now to make trading a priority. My wife and I had a baby about 6 months ago and I've been trying to trade all this time on and off. Also, even though my wife is supportive on the surface, without getting into the details, I know deep down that she thinks taking care of our son is more important than trading.

What I realized is that whenever my wife and I argue about something, the next day I will unintentionally (or perhaps I'm doing it intentionally?) try to "take it out on the market" and just make stupid mistakes left and right. A bad trading day will also result in more fighting. I know I have other issues I need to work on but this one seems to be the biggest. Understanding the problem is one thing but finding a solution to me is much more difficult. I'm definitely not ready to give up just because of this one problem. However, to preserve my capital, for now I think I need to just go back to paper trading and try to achieve some level of consistency before trading live again. Also I am going to have to discuss this with my wife and try to work out a solution.

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@Stephan
Your marriage is your life capital. Spend it well by investing in its future.
Thank you for the honest sharing. I understand and support your decision for family.

Ken

Ken,

Thank you for the comment. I totally agree. That's why I haven't been trading. I'm still doing my homework each day but I want to focus more on family first. I need to spend more time with my wife and kid. Also, I'd be lying to myself to think that spousal support is my only issue. I have many other things I need to work on before I'm ready to trade again. Thanks.

Overnight volume so far is about 5-10% below 50d avg. We are most likely opening out of range. Expecting 37 half to be tested. No econ news on the calendar. Expecting 2 way auction. Buyers might still be in control if we can get above 47.75.

Value shifted higher yesterday even though we closed within Monday's range. Interesting action overnight. FT mentioned that the key driver overnight was market disappointment with BoJ decision. We will most likely open with a gap down this morning within Friday's range. Holding 26 is key for buyers. No econ news on the calendar today. Relative volume is over 30% higher than 50d avg. With yesterday's range being so narrow, perhaps we will get a decent amount of volatility either to the upside or continue to the downside.

It's Contract Rollover today so relative volume is not correct. Not sure what's an easy way to determine the correct relative volume. Need to make a note to look into that.

Overnight ES gapped down to 1591.75 and currently trading near 1600 which is near prior balance low. 96 half is where the up move started and we got a re-test on 06/06/13. We are more than 100 points off the high so it's a very big bracket. ES is most likely going to open out of range. It's not usual to get 2 trend days in a row so expecting market to rest. Will need to watch the opening type to determine direction and velocity.

Hypothesis #1 - Responsive buyers step in and hold the balance area low, push ESH back above 1600 ONVPOC, then 1608, 09 half, 11.75 and perhaps 26 again depending on where we open.

Hypothesis #3 - We are not likely to have another trend day so ES may trade between 96 half to 1612.; just because I'm not expecting a trend day, it doesn't mean it won't happen. Also, we will probably get a strong push in either direction. I stopped watching the VIX because I want to reduce the amount of information I have to process on my screen but most likely we will get a decent amount of volatility.

I think this is going to be my last homework post for a while. Don't want to clutter the futures.io (formerly BMT) forum without adding any value since there are many other active traders posting their homework already. I will resume updating my journal when I'm ready to trade again.

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I went short this morning near yesterday's VAH. I got stubborn and held it through existing home sales and got stopped out. Normally getting stopped out on a trade is not a big deal and I have it in my plan to take 3 losing trades before I stop trading for the day. However, I have written in my notes that I should get out of a position before economic news. I could have gotten out at breakeven but instead I held on knowing I wasn't following my plan. I was pretty mad at myself because of that. Not because I loss $ but because I didn't follow my plan. Based on past experience, after making a mistake like that, I tend to revenge trade and lose even more money. Because I recognized that, I decided to just turn off my computer and walk away. I didn't even bother to save my Trade Analyzer screen (I can't pull historical data so no Trade Analyzer screenshot today). I spent a lot of time today thinking what I could have done differently.

Homework for tomorrow

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We broke the 56 support area but we're still above 25 area so the uptrend is still intact overall. Tomorrow one possibility is that we may get responsive buying at the open to re-test 64. If buyers don't step in then we may test 1625. Since we closed right @ a CHVN, we might get 2 sided trading and just chop around.

I suggest that BEFORE each session, make sure you READ ALOUD your trading plan. Then observe your behaviour.

It's been almost 9 months since my last futures.io (formerly BMT) journal entry. My son is 17 months old now and I finally have some free time to focus on trading. Since I started trading live again in late Jan 2014, I've been thinking about how I should use my online journal. I don't really have enough time to update it in the morning each day and I already have a routine to do my homework using Microsoft OneNote. I decided that I should update it on a monthly basis to show my results, lessons learned and work on my goals online for accountability. Accountability is the reason I started this journal in the first place.

I went back to trading 1 lot. I figured I should start small and slowly increase size. I took a total of 72 trades. I captured my S5 Trade Analyzer results and put the data in a spreadsheet that I got from our chat room. I think one of the traders with Stage 5 created this spreadsheet. We're still waiting for the online version of S5 Trade Analyzer with historical information but until then, I don't think I can live without this spreadsheet. It is a really awesome tool.

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According to the spreadsheet, my expectacy for Feb 2014 is 1.86. The highest was 4.41 after 17 trades and it quickly dropped down to 1.86 @ trade #72. My win % is 53 and Loss % is 47.

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I think I did ok but I made so many mistakes I'm surprised I have a positive expectancy so far. I need to stop micromanaging my trades. Most of the time when I scratch a trade, more than likely it will hit my target. Another problem is that after a losing trade, sometimes I will exit too early. I think the last 2 trades I took I got 3 or 4 ticks and immediately got out because I couldn't hold on. I am still trying to avoid losses. I don't think I have accepted the fact that the outcome of my next trade is 50/50. Those are the things I need to work on in March.

At the beginning of 2014, FT71 told us we need to set our goals. One of my goals is to make 4 ticks per trade on avg within 3 months. I'm not 100% sure I can make that happen but the only thing I can do is to keep trying. Another goal is to stick to my setups and not invent trades in the middle of the day. I haven't been doing a good job with that so far. I also told myself to remember to save my trade analyzer results each day. It's more like a habit but so many times in the past, I would forget to save my results and after RTH session is over, I can't log back in and grab the result for that day. It happened a few times before and it can get pretty frustrating for me so I told myself I need to make sure I save my stats.